


Mission Reports

by Airelle



Series: Bodie's Cat [3]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 10:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15241452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airelle/pseuds/Airelle
Summary: Instalment three in the series "Bodie's Cat". We learn more about guardian angels...





	Mission Reports

**Author's Note:**

  * For [franciskerst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/franciskerst/gifts).



> With my thanks to Raven for her beta-reading.

Bodie's living cat's account

My name — my human name — is Sunshine. Seeing that I'm a black and white cat, with more black than white, I've always found it a strange name, but humans are peculiar indeed.

I'm Bodie's cat. Or, rather, Bodie's cat's heir and stand-in.

When my father came to direct me to my human's door, he thought that he'd be invisible to me, but, indeed, I kinda saw him. Some of us can see ghosts all their lives, even if it's not exactly the norm. So, my father thought I was mostly unaware of what he was doing, but even if I couldn't directly communicate with him and didn't really see him all that clearly, I knew he was there, pushing me towards Bodie's front door.

Bodie is a good bloke. He feeds me rather regularly, and I'm authorized to sleep on his bed when this older bloke is not here - that means, often enough, because Bodie and George, I gathered, cannot exactly let it be known that they are sharing such a relationship. It's considered bad form for a human to sleep with his boss, or, indeed, with his subordinate. Not to mention the age difference... So, they meet relatively rarely, and even more so at Bodie's place.

My father is still Bodie's guardian angel, of course — he will be until the day his charge dies — and, from time to time, I do have a glimpse of his ghostly self winding his way round Bodie's ankle, or purring into his ear, lying on the pillow — a place which is forbidden to me, because of my human's slight allergy to cat's hair. The only time I slept there, he woke up sneezing and coughing in the middle of the night and made it clear I had to satisfy myself with sleeping at his feet or cuddled up to his bum. 

George has a guardian angel too, of course, as does Ray, Bodie's partner and best friend. George's is a dog - yerch. The first time I glimpsed him, I ran into the bedroom and hid under the bed for several hours. They tried to call me out of my hiding place, even tempting me with choice morsels of steak, but my mother didn't raise a fool: dog means enemy in my book. Only this one, being a ghost, was actually no threat to me, of course, and wasn't aware I could see him. So the next time, I acted normal when he appeared beside George, and all went well in the household. The humans never understood what had spooked me so much that first time. I was young enough then to try to tell them, to explain about the ghosts and everything, but, duh! They don't understand our language at all. When I finished my lengthy explanation, Bodie went to the kitchen, opened a can of cat food and said: "Well, I guess he's hungry. Come here, Sunshine, here's your meal, enjoy!"

Well, I did! It's not their fault they can't make out what we're trying to tell them, after all. It's just the way they're made.

I met Ray's guardian angel a few days after meeting Doggy. I don't know what his real name his, and I can't ask him, but I had to find a way to refer to him - so Doggy it is. Ray's guardian angel is a really beautiful creature, and I think I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her. As love stories go, though, this one was doomed from the start. Of course, she was dead, which could have put quite a crimp on any romantic developments; but even if she had been alive, nothing much could have happened between us, except, perhaps, her deciding to make a snack out of me. Because Ray's guardian angel is a wonderful, sleek, muscular and huge black female jaguar. In my mind, I named her Sophia, which seemed to suit her poise, strength and wisdom.

Because let me tell you, Ray's quite a difficult case for a guardian angel. Not that Bodie is that easy, either, but not as hard as Ray, that's a given. Ray sure needs a powerful one, as guardian angels go, because, let's say it plainly: the stubborn bastard managed to die after that poor crazy Asian girl shot him - and it wasn't at all his allotted time. I remember the loops Sophia had to go through to convince him to live after all! She sent those dreams to him while he was busy dying, or rather deciding between life and death, as if this was a decision he could make on his own, with no regards for the suffering he would cause to his human friends or the disruption it would entail to his planned lifetime and thus, to the grand scheme of things. I won't say that I understand all this perfectly, or even half perfectly, but I do know those things exist, and I saw, even if not clearly, the upset it caused to my dear Sophia. Not to mention the upset it caused to his human friends. Bodie, particularly, was very concerned, but at the same time, he was sure Ray would make it. When asked by George if his friend's will to live was strong, he answered, "The strongest." And he was right. Well, I can tell you Sophia was relieved! I could see it in her ghostly face when he finally woke up.

Now, for humans, a cat's face is not very expressive, I'm told. To them, we communicate with sound and gestures, the mewing, purring and rubbing up against them, all those things that we do. We have to, because they can't read our faces. Not to mention that they don't understand our speech, as I said. For a member of the feline persuasion, our faces can say a lot. Reading her face was my only way of knowing what Sophia was feeling or thinking, as we couldn't touch or communicate by sound, and she couldn't even see me; she can mostly see only her charge and his immediate surroundings, pertaining to his well-being.

Well, my life with this human is not bad! I have a shelter, food and a sufficient amount of care from him, even if it's often casual. But we cats are used to make do with much less than this if we have to, so I can truthfully say that I'm satisfied with my lot. Even if I have to live with that unrequited love for Sophia...

 

Bodie's ghost cat's account

It really was one of my best ideas, to guide my offspring to Bodie's place!

He is clever, handsome, lovable and fun. I'm talking about my offspring, of course. Bodie isn't too bad, either. But, well, he's only a human...

I was right about the benefits Bodie would reap from having a real, live-in cat. Okay, there are drawbacks: the hair on the furniture, the furballs regurgitated on the floor, the necessity to buy food... But cats are good for the soul and for the body. A natural remedy for most of the human ailments, that's us!

It turns out I was somewhat wrong about my offspring, though. He can see us. Not vaguely, not as shadows glimpsed from a distance, but as we are — I was going to say, "in the flesh" — but, well, as we are no longer corporeal, that can't apply. I was there the first time he saw Doggy (The name my son gave to George's guardian angel, a big mastiff!) and his reaction was proof positive he could see us. And the way he stares at Sophia, as he calls her... Unrequited love, indeed!

We are all very careful not to let him know that we know, and we don't speak in his presence, so he would go on believing that we don't see him. It wouldn't be good for him to be in such close contact with the afterlife. I do guess, though, that upon his death, he will become a guardian angel, too... Am I creating a dynasty, here?

As my son doesn't have the benefit of the extra powers that we get when we die, his influence on the events is rather limited. I still have a lot of work on my plate to keep Bodie out of trouble. There was one instance where I couldn't stop him from being stabbed, as my own influence on events, even if it's greater than that of a living cat (Particularly one who, not being at the scene, couldn't intervene!), still has boundaries. I managed to keep him conscious long enough to call for help, though. I guess that saved his life. My charge had nurtured some really ugly thoughts and feelings about coloured people (Due to his bad experiences in Africa, perhaps? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.) It's a character trait I don't like at all in him, but it appears he was able to renounce some of his prejudices after the way the black doctor and nurse cared for him at the hospital. He did apologise to the doctor and asked the nurse out after his release. Let me tell you, I was afraid he was going to upset his relationship with George at that time! Not another Joanna! I thought, appalled. But it wasn't. He was very civil to the nurse, treating her to a good restaurant and apologising again to her for his rude behaviour. She was kind enough to tell him she forgave him, and to hint — rather heavily, I must say — that she had a live-in boyfriend and wasn't interested in more than a friendly meal. I could see the relief in Bodie's face and demeanour, even if he managed to look disappointed to her, maybe to flatter the girl's ego, or simply to keep up his "protective colouring" about his true leanings in sexual and romantic matters. Crisis averted, I thought.

And so our lives (or afterlives) went on like this, quite a roller-coaster, I must say, given Bodie's occupation, not to mention George's and Ray's. They are not my charges, but I work very closely with their guardian angels. And, as they are often together or, as Ray himself put it, speaking about him and Bodie, "never far apart," I do see a lot about their lives, too.

Ray doesn't know about Bodie and George, I think, but... maybe he suspects. Those two are indeed too close for Ray not to have at least a hint about it...

 

Ray Doyle's account  
I swear I didn't know. Well, I've suspected it, from time to time. But I had confirmation — of a kind — recently.

I had this very strange dream. I was working, with Bodie, as usual, and we were staking out a warehouse. Nothing exceptional in this! I guess I dozed off for a while, as it was Bodie's turn to watch. Suddenly, the warehouse I was watching was obscured by several animal shapes. I saw a cat, a big dog and what I believe was a melanistic jaguar. They were moving restlessly in front of my car, and then the jaguar roared. It woke me up abruptly. I wasn't in my bed, of course, but in the Capri, and something told me we'd be well-advised to leave the car. Without any explanation — there was no time — I pushed Bodie out of the passenger door and scrambled out from the driver's side. I took Bodie by the arm and we ran a few feet. Almost immediately the warehouse door burst open and two goons with machine guns ran out and opened fire on the Capri, peppering it with bullets.

Bodie turned to me, a kind of shocked surprise all over his face. He asked me, in a voice that trembled just a little, what had just happened.

I answered that I'd had an intuition, a premonition or whatever you can call it. I was rather shaken myself. Had I not fallen briefly asleep while we were on duty, I probably wouldn't have seen the animals.

And we'd have stayed in the car.

And our bullet-ridden corpses would soon have been laid out on a cold slab in the mortuary.

Crisis averted. But I now think that, yes, we do have guardian angels, Bodie and I.

I just wonder: whose dog is this?


End file.
